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Word of the Day | expropriate

expropriate •\ek-ˈsprō-prē-ˌāt\• verb

The word expropriate has appeared in nine New York Times articles in the past year, including on Sept. 1, 2011, in “More of the Same in a Mortgage Plan” by Agnes T. Crane and Martin Hutchinson:

Royalties or equivalent charges paid to governments can severely crimp a mine operator’s upside. Australia, for instance, is weighing a tax that would take 30 percent of operating profit exceeding a return
equal to the government bond yield plus seven percentage points. That will not deter investment in high-cost mines, where profitability is modest, but it caps the leverage of mining profit to 70 percent of the
change in the gold price once profits are high.

In Peru, miners feared that Ollanta Humala, the new president, might expropriate assets. In comparison, the royalty he has proposed seems a fair deal. Nevertheless, the government’s levy
will be linked to operating profit, again limiting the upside for mining companies.